Sunday, 10 May 2009

The Nature of Love

As we were driving home from Bowral today a song came on the radio, it reminded me of a time in high school where the boy of my 'then' dreams and I were laying on the grass during a free period, I rember lying there wishing he knew how amazing I thought he was, wishing that he would ask me out or that I could ask him. As we lay there suddenly he held my hand and said 'imagine how wonderful it would be if we both fell asleep and we could meet in our dreams, then we could do whatever we liked'.

I fell in love with him that day, and although the moment was fleeting and he never did ask me out, nor I him, he will always stay in that little corner of my heart saved for people I once loved.

Love is one of those things that people have very different perspectives of, I know a friend who holds the word so sacred, she has only told a handful of people that she loves them, and others use it as a throw away term, luv ya, I sit somewhere in the middle. I have loved and do love many people, men, women, friends, lovers children and adults. Does the fact that I feel love for more people make my love less pure?

One of the greatest things about loving easily is that I have also been loved regularly, openly and easily by others. In fact one of the best compliments that I have ever received was from mum just after she met Andrew for the first time, she said if she could have one of my characteristics for herself it would be the way these wonderful men love me. She was right I have been loved almost as much as I have loved.

With love also comes heartbreak and I have been heartbroken almost as many times as I have been in love, but once the rawness has passed even heartbreak is a gift. Like a firestorm that leaves everything looking charred and black but is really a way of stimulating new growth.

So no I don't think my easily given love is less pure, and although I'm sure there are some great reasons to hold love so tightly, and declare it so rarely, there are also some huge gifts to giving it easily, and even if I only loved for a week, or a night, or an afternoon laying on the grass, I hold them tightly in my heart.